She’s been referred to as “Barack’s rock”, his “secret weapon” and “the other side of his brain.” She was Mr. Obama’s senior advisor during his campaign and is now White House Chief Senior Advisor and assistant to the president for intergovernmental relations and public liaison. According to Obama’s media adviser Anita Dunn, “She knows everyone in Chicago,” or as Adrienne Pitts, a 40 year old Chicago lawyer puts it, “She is like a god in Chicago, an icon.” After hearing so much about Valerie Jarrett’s influence over Barack Obama and the extent to which her influence manifests itself into his thoughts and decision making, one should begin to wonder: just who is Valerie Jarrett? We did the research so you can decide.

Valerie Jarrett was born in Shiraz, Iran in 1956. Her father, Dr. James Bowman, an internationally recognized geneticist and pathologist from Washington, D.C., was sent there in 1955 for six years as part of an American doctor program to help developing nations. When Valerie was 5 years old they moved to London for one year and then resettled…

…back in Hyde Park, an affluent area near the University of Chicago. Her mother, Barbara, an expert on early childhood development, has deep roots and a big extended family in that area. Their home is one block away from Michelle and Barack Obama’s home. Curious…isn’t Tony Rezko one of their neighbors? As a matter of fact, The London Times reported that his wife Rita borrowed some money ($3.5 million) from Iraqi-born billionaire Nadhmi Auchi to purchase their home whose lot adjoins with the Obama’s.

It has been reported that Jarrett’s connection to the Obama’s reverts back seventeen years to July 1991, when she offered Michelle Robinson, then newly engaged to Barack Obama, a job at Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s office. Jarrett was Daley’s deputy chief of staff and it was supposedly at this time Jarrett was introduced to Obama by Michelle, his fiancée. However, according to the Sun Times, Jarrett was an associate between 1981 and 1984 at Ballard, Shepard and Pole Ltd. and then moved on to a real estate practice at Sonnenschein, Carlin, Nath and Rosenthal. But Jarrett “wasn’t happy with private practice,” recalled Judd Miner, “. . . and she wanted to get involved in the Washington administration.” Miner recruited Jarrett to the city’s Law Department with the corporation counsel under the late Mayor Harold Washington.

According to the Sun Times, “A few years later, back in private practice, Miner would make another recruiting coup: a young Harvard Law School graduate named Barack Obama. And over at City Hall, Jarrett, Daley’s deputy chief of staff, would hire another lawyer fleeing corporate life, Michelle Robinson, Obama’s then-fiancée.” Could it be possible that Jarrett already knew Obama at this point if she had worked for Miner? The Sun Times also mentions that Obama and Michelle’s marriage might never have happened if they had not met at the Chicago law frim of Sidley & Austin in the summer of 1989. Michelle Robinson was the lawyer assigned to be his adviser. Somewhat curious….

It is noteworthy to mention that after Jarrett left Daley’s office she took Michelle Obama with her to the Chicago Housing Department to be her assistant. This coincided precisely with the time Obama was installed at Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Galland where he was writing the “bids” for Tony Rezko’s companies. Is it possible that these bids were coincidentally being approved by Jarrett and Michelle? Very curious…

A Los Angeles Times article reports: In one instance, Obama defended a nonprofit corporation that owns low-income housing projects against a lawsuit in which a man alleged that he slipped and fell because of poor maintenance. Obama got the suit dismissed. In another case, Obama appeared on behalf of a nonprofit corporation that provided healthcare for poor people. A woman who claimed income of less than $8,000 a year had sued Obama’s client to obtain a $336 payment for baby-sitting services; Obama’s client paid up, and the case was settled.” One must wonder who this nonprofit corporation was…

 

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced last week that it has “obtained documents linking Valerie Jarrett to a series of real estate scandals, including several housing projects operated by convicted felon and Obama fundraiser/friend Antoin “Tony” Rezko.” These documents state that Jarrett served on the board for several organizations that provided funding and support for Chicago housing projects led by real estate developers Rezko and Allison Davis (Davis is Obama’s former boss and another financial backer.) Press reports cite that housing projects operated by Rezko and Davis have been “substandard and beset with code violations.” The Chicago Sun Times reported that one particular project managed by Rezko was “riddled with problems – including squalid living conditions…lack of heat, squatters and drug dealers.” Here is part of the press release:

As Chief Executive Officer of the Habitat Company Jarrett also managed a controversial housing project located in Obama’s former state senate district called Grove Parc Plaza. According to the Boston Globe the housing complex was considered “uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage…In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale — a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.” Ms. Jarrett refused to comment to the Globe on the conditions of the complex.“Like Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett is a product of the corrupt Chicago political machine. And it is no stretch to say that she was a slumlord,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “We have real concerns about Jarrett’s ethics. Washington already has plenty of corruption. We don’t need to import more of it from Chicago.”

Stay tuned for Who is Valerie Jarrett Part II…